Comparing the Effectiveness of Emotion-Focused Therapy and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Experiential Avoidance in Individuals Grieving Due to COVID-19

Psychiatric interventions for individuals with complex grief are essential; therefore, this study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy on experiential avoidance in individuals grieving due to COVID-19.

This semi-experimental study was conducted with a pre-test, post-test design with a control group and a three-month follow-up. The population of the study consisted of all families grieving due to COVID-19 during 2020-2021 in the city of Chalus, from which 45 individuals were selected through purposive sampling based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and randomly assigned into three groups (two experimental and one control) of 15 members each. The first group received 9 sessions of Greenberg's (2017) emotion-focused therapy, the second group received 9 sessions of Beck's (2011) cognitive-behavioral therapy, and the control group received no intervention. The Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (MEAQ; Gámez et al., 2011) was completed by participants at three stages: pre-test, post-test, and follow-up, for data collection. The data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance.

The results indicated that both emotion-focused therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy are effective in reducing experiential avoidance in grieving individuals, and moreover, in comparing the two therapies, emotion-focused therapy was more effective than cognitive-behavioral therapy in controlling experiential avoidance (p<0.05).

The findings of this study suggest that emotion-focused therapy can be utilized to improve experiential avoidance in grieving individuals.